Tuesday, April 05, 2005

"Especially when you realize it's something that didn't have to happen."

BC Man sent home twice from hospital

Rita Darby said her children are still in shock over the death of their father, who had been in good shape before his January retirement. "We're not taking this very well," she said. "Especially when you realize it's something that didn't have to happen." -Vancouver Sun, April 5, 2005

The following is from the Vancouver Sun today. A second incident in which a BC man goes to emergency more than once and is misdiagnosed.

Could this be the result of overworked staff, bed shortages, brought on by the Campbell Liberals. We saw it all in Surrey Memorial recently. Now an investigation into the man's death announced in Langley, the same Health Authority Surrey is in.

James Darby, a father of five who turned 55 in December and retired as a Canada Post letter carrier in January, died March 16 after a blockage in his bowel led to toxic shock and caused a heart attack, according to Dr. Ward Tinney, medical director of Maple Ridge.

Darby's eldest son, Kyle, a 27-year-old mechanic on long-haul truck trailers, said he and his family want answers from Ridge Meadows Hospital after his father was twice released from the hospital in the days leading up to his death and told he had a routine case of food poisoning.

"It was a week or more that my dad spent trying to get help for the stomach pain he was having," said Kyle. "He thought he had a hernia. But when he went to the[hospital] emergency room, he was told he had food poisoning.... He was released after he went there each time." ...

..."He couldn't sit, he was in so much pain. He was squirming with pain," she said, noting that by then, her husband hadn't had a bowel movement in six days.